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C# Zoomed image in Picturebox gets cropped in top left

I want to make very simplistic paint/image editor. Mainly, for pixel editing, but that doesn't seem relevant.
To ease up my effort, I decided to keep the image size at 16x16.
I populate the form, add a PixelBox and slap a default image on it.
Of course, I need to make the pixels visible, set the interpolation to NearestNeighbor.
Then, I stretch the pixelbox to 320x320. And there the situation arises.
The image is displayed as thus:
Cropped image
Could someone shed some light on this? This is just a 16x16 image with a checkerboard pattern that I made, but I can't figure out why it is displayed with that offset at the top left.
Also, no code as been yet added. I assume this is default behavior?

If you look at the examples on the page that exact same error happens, so it must be a bug on the PixelBox.
Instead of using a custom control for this type of operation just use the standard PictureBox and scale the image by yourself:
public Bitmap ScaleBitmap(Bitmap src, Size NewSize)
{
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(NewSize.Width, NewSize.Height, src.PixelFormat);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(src);
g.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.NearestNeighbor;
g.DrawImage(src, new Rectangle(Point.Empty, NewSize), new Rectangle(0, 0, src.Width, src.Height), GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
g.Dispose();
return bmp;
}

Use picturebox as a canvas and draw text

I want to use a PictureBox as a canvas and draw some text on it and save.
I wrote this piece of code but I'm not sure if im doing this the correct way:
Bitmap b = new Bitmap(pictureBox1.Width, pictureBox1.Height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(b);
g.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(Color.White), new Rectangle(0, 0, pictureBox1.Width, pictureBox1.Height)); // i used this code to make the background color white
g.DrawString("some text", new Font("Times New Roman", 20), new SolidBrush(Color.Red), new PointF(10, 10));
pictureBox1.Image = b;
This code works well but when I want to change the background color of the image I have to redraw the text.
Is there a way to change the background color without having to redraw the text?

Writing a Paint program is a lot of fun, but you need to plan ahead for all or most of the features you want.
So far you have these:
A background you can change
A way to modify an image by drawing text on it
The need to save it all to a file
Here are a few more things you will need:
Other tools than just text, like lines, rectangles etc..
A choice of colors and pens with widths
A way to undo one or more steps
Here are few thing that are nice to have:
A way to help with drawing and positioning with the mouse
Other type backgrounds like a canvas or pergament paper
The ability to draw with some level of tranparency
A redo feature (*)
Rotation and scaling (***)
Levels (*****)
Some things are harder (*) or a lot harder (***) than others, but all get hard when you decide to patch them on too late..
Do read this post (starting at 'actually') about PictureBoxes, which explain how it is the ideal choice for a Paint program.
Your original piece of code and your question have these problems:
You seem to think that repeating anything, like redrawing the text is wrong. It is not. Windows redraws huge numbers of things all the time..
You have mixed two of the tasks which really should be separate.
You have not parametrizied anything, most notably the drawing of the text should use several variables:
Font
Brush
Position
the text itself
The same will be true once you draw lines or rectangles..
So here are the hints how do get it right:
Use the BackgroundColor and/or the BackgroundImage of the Picturebox to dynamically change the background!
Collect all things to draw in a List<someDrawActionclass>
Combine all drawings by drawing it into he Picturebox's Image
Use the Paint event to draw supporting things like the temporary rectangle or line while moving the mouse. On MouseUp you add it to the list..
So, coming to the end, let's fix your code..:
You set the backgound with a function like this:
void setBackground(Color col, string paperFile)
{
if (paperFile == "") pictureBox1.BackColor = col;
else pictureBox1.BackgroundImage = Image.FromFile(paperFile);
}
you can call it like this: setBackground(Color.White, "");
To draw a piece of text into the Image of the PictureBox, first make sure you have one:
void newCanvas()
{
Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(pictureBox1.ClientSize.Width, pictureBox1.ClientSize.Height);
pictureBox1.Image = bmp;
}
Now you can write a function to write text. You really should not hard-code any of the settings, let alone the text! This is just a quick and very dirty example..:
void drawText()
{
using (Font font = new Font("Arial", 24f))
using (Graphics G = Graphics.FromImage(pictureBox1.Image))
{
// no anti-aliasing, please
G.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.SingleBitPerPixel;
G.DrawString("Hello World", font, Brushes.Orange, 123f, 234f);
}
pictureBox1.Invalidate();
}
See here and here for a few remarks on how to create a drawAction class to store all the things your drawing is made up from..!
The last point is how to save all layers of the PictureBox:
void saveImage(string filename)
{
using (Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(pictureBox1.ClientSize.Width,
pictureBox1.ClientSize.Height))
{
pictureBox1.DrawToBitmap(bmp, pictureBox1.ClientRectangle);
bmp.Save("yourFileName.png", ImageFormat.Png);
}
}

Make overlapping picturebox transparent in C#.net

I have two overlapping pictureboxes.The images of both picture boxes have some transparent pixels.I want to see the bottom picture box through the transparent pixels of the overlapping picture box.
I tried setting the background color of both picture boxes as transparent.But it just sets the back color of the picture box to the background color of the form.

Clearly you are using Winforms. Yes, transparency is simulated by drawing the pixels of the Parent. Which is the form, you only see the form pixels, stacking effects don't work. There's a KB article that shows a workaround for this. It is painful. Another approach is to not use PictureBox controls but just draw the images in the form's Paint event.
Consider WPF, it has a very different rendering model that easily supports transparency.

Solutions to that problem might be various, and it mainly depends on your skills and amount of work will depend on kind of images you're dealing with. For example if images are always same resolution, size and overlapping image supports transparency you could try to do manipulation of two Image objects and draw one over another, then display it in PictureBox. Or if you will need to do it multiple times in various places of your app you could even consider creating your own UserContriol.
Code in answer of this question, method ResizeImagein particular, show how to create resized, good quality image, all you need it is to change it a little. Make it to get two Images as input parameters, and change it to draw one image over another.
Changes might look like this
public static Bitmap CombineAndResizeTwoImages(Image image1, Image image2, int width, int height)
{
//a holder for the result
Bitmap result = new Bitmap(width, height);
//use a graphics object to draw the resized image into the bitmap
using (Graphics graphics = Graphics.FromImage(result))
{
//set the resize quality modes to high quality
graphics.CompositingQuality = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighQuality;
graphics.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;
graphics.SmoothingMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.HighQuality;
//draw the images into the target bitmap
graphics.DrawImage(image1, 0, 0, result.Width, result.Height);
graphics.DrawImage(image2, 0, 0, result.Width, result.Height);
}
//return the resulting bitmap
return result;
}
And use it, for example, like this:
pictureBox1.Image = CombineAndResizeTwoImages(Image.FromFile("c:\\a.png"), Image.FromFile("c:\\b.png"), 100,100);
But that its only example, and you must tune it up to your needs.
Good luck.

If it's one PictureBox inside another, you can use:
innerPictureBox.SendToBack();
innerPictureBox.Parent = outerPictureBox;

How to render images in real-time

I am looking for a solution\software that I can use in order to render buttons in real time.
That is, I have an image and text, and I want them to be an image altogether in realtime.
Thank you

You can dynamically create an image based on text using the System.Drawing namespace.
private Bitmap CreateBitmapImage(string imageText, string imageUrl)
{
Bitmap myBitmap = new Bitmap(imageUrl);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(myBitmap);
g.DrawString(imageText, new Font("Tahoma", 40), Brushes.White, new PointF(0, 0));
return (objBmpImage);
}
Once you have the Bitmap object in memory you can save it to the disk and call it's location from the web.
Bitmap bmp = CreateBitmapImage("my picture", #"C:\myBasePic.bmp");
bmp.Save(#"C:\bla.png", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.png);

It would be good if you can specify why such requirement is there. One of such scenario that I had encountered was need of image buttons with different text (round corners with shaded background) - this can easily be achieved using CSS. If you really want to combine an image and text together then you can do that at server side (using say System.Drawing types) and serve the combined image over a handler/web-service.

How do I convert a Graphics object to a Bitmap object, inside PrintPage event?

This is the high level problem I'm trying to solve...
I have a 3rd party plotting/graphing (IoComp Plot), and I want to embed a high quality (at least 600 dpi) bitmap of the Plot control in reports created by another 3rd party report package (Combit List & Label).
This is the approach that seems most promising so far...
---Edit---:
After trying many other approachs, the only one that I think I can make work is to create a hidden instance of the Plot control, with everything scaled up to printer size (approx 5 times screen size). That includes width and height, font sizes, line widths - every visible component of the control. Yuck!
------
I can get a Graphics object of the proper resolution from the plot control's PrintPage event, but converting it to a Bitmap so the report package will be happy is proving to be the major stumbling block. Several hours of searching has led to other people who asked the same question, but no viable answers.
The only promising lead I've found suggested using one of the Bitmap constructors, which takes a Graphics instance as a parameter.
However, it's not working for me. It creates Bitmap, but with no content from the Plot control - it is a pure black image.
Here's my code (edited to show drawing of red line to Graphics object):
void PrintDocument_PrintPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs e)
{
// Draw a red line on the Graphics object. When printed, this
// line is shown as part of the normal Plot graphics.
Pen myPen;
myPen = new Pen(Color.Red);
e.Graphics.DrawLine(myPen, 0, 0, 200, 200);
myPen.Dispose();
// Create a bitmap from the Graphics object
Bitmap bm = new Bitmap(1000, 1000, e.Graphics);
// Save to disk
// DOES NOT WORK - CREATES FILE THAT IS PURE BLACK (VIEWED
// WITH "PAINT" PROGRAM)
bm.Save(#"C:\Bicw_Dev\Bic.Net\FrontEnd\GraphicsToBmp.bmp", ImageFormat.Bmp);
bm.Dispose();
}
Can anyone suggest why this doesn't work? Is this even a valid approach?
Also, please note:
As far as I can determine (and I've spent quite a bit of time looking) there is no way to get a high resolution, print quality Bitmap from the Plot control directly!
I stress this because several others who asked the question got code samples in response that solved the opposite problem - converting a Bitmap to a Graphics.
I need to convert a Graphics object to a Bitmap object.
And if anyone can suggest an alternate approach that allows me to get a print quality image of my plots into my reports, please feel free. (For example, I can get a low quality (72 bpi) Bitmap from the Plot control, and have considered trying to stretch it - but I've never seen that approach work well in other applications).
Thanks,
-Tom Bushell
Edit in response to comment:
As an experiment, I added the following:
Pen myPen;
myPen = new Pen(Color.Red);
e.Graphics.DrawLine(myPen, 0, 0, 200, 200);
myPen.Dispose();
This caused a red line to be drawn over the plot graphics when I printed my plot. But it had no effect on the Bitmap - it's still pure black.

However, it's not working for me. It
creates Bitmap, but with no content
from the Plot control - it is a pure
black image.
Well you never do paint to the graphics, what do you expect?
You are suppose to do the actual drawing for the output in that event.

The constructor you're using does not copy any graphics, only sets the resolution equal to the graphics resolution. See msdn. As Leppie points out, you have to actually draw something to the bitmap. I suggest getting another graphics object for the item you just created.
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bmp);
//Make the background white
g.FillRectangle(Brushes.White, 0, 0, 1000, 1000);

It is not easy to control the DPI in the Print(Preview) system.
But maybe you are going about it the wrong way. What you want is to create a (large) bitmap and then 'trick' the control in to using that bitmap as if it was the screen. See this list of links.
No need for PrintDocument.